


get some air

by Ironicspoon



Category: Running Man RPF
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - College/University, Gen, Getting Together, Partying, college kids getting wild but not too wild
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-08
Updated: 2018-07-30
Packaged: 2018-09-15 19:55:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9253670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ironicspoon/pseuds/Ironicspoon
Summary: as if fate wasn’t racist enough and immigration wasn’t hard and complicated enough, gary would like to say that his fourth year of college went smoothly. funny enough, it doesn’t, and he can say that it’s 1001% jihyo’s fault.





	1. your scent

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yea so this is my first PUBLISHED rm fic, first published monday couple fic, so please don't yell at me thanks xoxo
> 
> also check out the tags as they update/change in case you feel uncomfortable w anything!!^^

gary has always been a bit behind - he’s what his middle school and high school teachers described as a late bloomer to his parents. when they moved to the states, where school was less suppressing and the curriculum was a bit lighter, he couldn’t exactly keep up with any of his classes besides math (math is a universal language, his dad said while teaching him fractions) because of how long it took him to get a grasp on english. he didn’t decide what university he wanted to go to until right before midnight on the night before the deadline (april 30th), and he kept switching his major between art history and music until he had eighty-two credits up his sleeve. 

only to add to that, gary has made a countless number (too many, more like) of mistakes so far in his life. the first major one being when they moved to america when he was six and fucking up his age first thing in front of the officer who asked about age, name, and birthday at customs (sex, he had said as the officer looked at him in horror. to his sister’s credit, she whispered the correct pronounciation in his ear the second the officer had looked away, and (miraculously) his parents hadn’t noticed), and the time the kids in his first grade class couldn’t pronounce his name, so he panicked and told them to call him gary (because gae was the dumb-but-not-really nickname his grandma made up when he was a baby, and ri just sounds cool). it doesn’t fully come as a surprise - but it still does - that gary’s possibly biggest mistake yet is falling for girls when he should be studying and thinking about the future in his fourth year of college.

though maybe it’s not girls; plural. maybe he likes just one girl.

they’re in modern photography together, which is admittedly the most boring class that gary couldn’t drop for his degree, and he just so happens to notice her from the first day (though not for romantic reasons, not necessarily). instead of going to a biggish state college in new york, he was accepted for one of the more asian-centric-californian-with-good-art-programs-universities that he vaguely remembers applying to. another mistake in itself was not realizing how immensely more biggish it was than the state college he applied to, so he floundered for a year or two with majors, switching between music and art (his parents wanted him to do something more productive, but they let him do as he wished and recommended art, like it would make more money. it’s sort of bullshit though, amature artists and c-list radio show hosts and singers are all starving, he’s gonna fail at life either way). most of his classes are over-whelmingly large and the only mandatory thing is showing up for exams. yet, the amount of people actually going through to graduation majoring in art history is generally minimal, so attendance is mandatory for his art classes besides modern art studies, with the attendance at about 50 people. naturally, they have to go through the first-day cringe fest of roll call. the professor - some old guy gary isn’t familiar with - expectedly butchers the pronunciation.

“um.. h-hee… gun? h-eegan kang?’

“i go by gary,” gary calls out, pointing his head downwards when the freshmen in the row in front of him turn around and stare at him. in the art history department, gary is well known, popular, if he wants to over exaggerate; known as witty and good to get notes from, according to his underclassmen (and he doesn’t have an accent, not really, he worked for years to separate himself from it; so most of them don't know that he's an immigrant). but every time he has to explain his name, english words feel thick in his mouth and his voices tightens. for a second, he’s not witty or outgoing or popular, he’s korean, he’s foreign. for a second, he’s six again and he’s standing in front of his first american class with a korean name gifted to him from his korean family. he’s hyperaware of every syllable that marks him as foreign, as asian, so he doesn’t correct anyone’s pronunciation of heegun. just tells them, “gary, call me gary,” and then they stop caring and he waits for them to move on. if they actually do care and pester him until he mumbles his name correctly to them, gary folds in on himself like a paper box and closes up. he just waits for them to move on again. 

so the professor moves on. he moves on after he makes a note next to gary’s name and calls out elizabeth kim who gary bitterly thinks has never experienced the weird anxiety of having a name people can’t say. after andrew kung and bryan lee and a couple other people with names gary doesn’t register as asian, the professor calls out “jihyo song?” and gary can't help but crane his neck and turn his head exactly the way that makes him heat up whenever his own name is called. 

“ji is fine,” she calls - ji song, song jihyo, the girl gary may be a little bit attracted to. 

even so, he’s not attracted right away, not really. his first thought was, we’re the same. they are, because obviously with a korean name spelled and pronounced like that without the use of an american name or whatever, she was born in korea or lived there. yet, she has a clear, nice american voice without any trace of an accent.

another thing he notices, somewhere in his mind, is that ji song has a very, very nice, pretty face. she’s small like most other asian girls on campus, but she’s cute in her own right, and somewhat feels elegant with the way she sits cross legged in her chair with her back straightened, with a small frame. she also looks remarkably good in sweatpants, a baggy t-shirt, a baseball cap, and big, round glasses. 

(more importantly, though, he has class with a korean person (he’s had classes with a lot of korean people, admittedly) who came from korea, which is something a little bit extraordinary, considering the only classes he’s ever had with real life koreans from korea is his advanced math classes in freshman year,)

in order to assign partners for the midterm research presentation, the sort of thing that only takes place in books and movies (and something that makes you feel as if fate is a little bit racist) happens, and ji pulls gary’s name out of a mixing bowl.

she pronounces both kang and heegun clearly and correctly (which makes gary’s heart flutter the tiniest bit. the tiniest. it feels good to hear his home language being spoken from someone else.), which sort of throws the professor off balance and peer at the attendance sheet, but he’s no longer confused when gary raises his hand and nods. 

to be honest, they don't spend a lot of time together because most of their discussions take place outside of class over google docs when gary's drinking coffee during break while working at gil’s tiny hipster coffee place that's closer to being off campus than on campus. there are a couple times - two times, to be exact - when the professor finishes up his lecture early and they spend the remaining time in class working on their projects. gary drags his desk over to where ji sits, where they review what they'll say about alfred stieglitz and his contributions to modern photography. 

ji is a bit nicer than he expects, considering that a majority of the girls he's met at college are quiet, judgmental art students, or obnoxiously loud music majors who are slowly easing out of their rebellious teenage phase. she smells like flowers and grass and everything that gary's fond of, and her face is even more exceptionally very, very nice. she also laughs at every dumb joke or comment about what the professor says that comes out of gary's mouth, which makes his heart beat a little faster, even it’s just a little bit. they meet more often in the library, and ji shows up looking perfect and gary has to contain himself from turning red.

he can admit that maybe, he possibly may have a crush on ji song, but there's countless reasons why she wouldn't like him back. 

gary’s first realization that a relationship with the very pretty and smart and sleepy ji song wouldn’t happen was because ugly boys and flowers girls don’t mix. he’s not necessarily ugly, per say, but his face is considered common in neighborhoods and on the street, and he’s nothing compared to the other asian guys in the vocal and theatre departments. he’s nothing compared to guys who sing melodramatic music alone in the studio while banging on a piano early in the morning while everyone else is gone; and he’s nothing compared to the guy dancing onstage after the building closes by somehow smuggling the keys from somewhere because they’re the main characters of their own lives (high school musical three, gary thinks). he would’ve stayed in the music department if his parents weren’t so concerned, he did pretty well with his music and he still has his status of being the designated on campus radio host after four years and counting. he doesn’t mix well with flowers boys, anyway. his crew was more with the hip hop nerds and whatever business majors in his frat that were calm enough for gary to enjoy hanging out with. now he just mostly hangs out with the asian frat guys, and he'll take the freshmen and sophomore in his house out to dinner if they're broke enough and being tolerable. 

the other reason is that girls like her just don't fall for guys like gary. gary has a way with words that could probably make him more popular with girls, but he doesn't have the singing voice that jongkook has. he has a nice voice, sure, but his voice cracks too much when he sings. that's why he started rapping in the first place.

theres also the fact that gary’s short and he’s dumb at everything besides music and art and math and he doesn't know a lot about girls other than their feelings. he’s a lyricist - and a fucking good one at that - and he’d rather have his ass kicked than for someone to try and tell him otherwise. he understands girls and their feelings, and he knows enough about them to know that it’ll take guts and years of charm to get someone to fall for him.

so that’s his first real realization that he likes ji song a little, maybe a lot, just because he’s already thinking about how not-good they would look together. it throws him off balance and it sort of makes him feel awkward when they meet up at starbucks to work on the final draft. he ignores the fact that he maybe sort of really likes ji during their presentation, and it makes him feel vulnerable and more tired than he might of been, even when their professor says great job and gary nods at him. ji flashes him a smile when they finish and gary's stomach lurches and he thinks what the fuck. 

he slowly falls deeper and deeper into a hole of denial and what the fuck is happening to me as he keeps seeing her as finals and the end of the semester draw closer. he keeps noticing ji, and then noticing himself noticing her. his heart speeds up a little when ji nods in greeting when gary gets to class, and he notices that too. at first he thinks things like, well, shes nice, i’d probably like to be friends with her, i’m platonic with tons of girls, and then, she’s good-looking; i’m allowed to notice that she's pretty, and eventually it gets too confusing and too, too much, he’s saying to himself, okay, i like her, but so what? 

so his mind brings up his list of why gary’s hopeless again, and he sort of agrees with himself for once. he doesn't even want to think about it, let alone do something about his crush. he doesn't know ji, at least not really. he knows that she's sort of soft spoken and into art and that she's also acting in the theatre apartment, but he also knows that ji song doesn’t really fit any of the stereotypes the campus’ student life is built on, let alone asian stereotypes. she’s smart and funny but also a little delicate and she can be soft spoken around people he knows she’s not familiar with (she was pretty quiet around him for the first couple classes), but he also knows by stalking her’s and jay’s and pretty much everyone else in her friend group’s twitters that she can be sharp tongued and thick-skinned and she loves to beat up the only the freshmen that gary knows - kevin lee. because she's friends with him (and even though they've only been friends for a couple weeks because gil hired him for the cashier job, gary knows that he kind of deserves it. he also knows that kevin isn't a good opportunity to get into ji's heart - he messes everything he does up). she also seems to sort of have a lot of freshmen friends, according to her instagram. so does gary, maybe their common similarity will put fate to ease and bring them together (or drive them to opposite ends to the campus, or better yet, the continent, and gary isn’t sure which option out of the three he wants fate to choose). 

gary is sort of approaching the close friend zone too - if he wants to kid himself - with the way she doesn't hesitate to punch his arm or smack his hand when he says something dumb. or maybe that’s a people thing -? gary doesn't understand people much outside of relationships because he did a lot of research on love when he was in high school to help with his song writing for the up and coming small duo he and gil still perform as.

but if - and only if - ji just so happened to like him back, what would gary do? he avoids thinking about the question like it’s some sort of plague that clouds his mind when he should be studying or sleeping or watching infinity challenge re-runs to recharge his brain after online tests. yet, even so, it’s not to say he does anything about it, since he thinks about it anyway. a lot. even when he tells his brain to fuckingstopomg, whenever he’s on campus, he keeps his eyes peeled for ji’s slender frame, even though on occasions when he actually sees her, gary usually pretends he didn’t.

or he’ll wave or nod or say hi and then drop a disgusting one liner and say goodbye, with his ears red. though he probably shouldn’t, considering that he’d save his own ass and save every passerby from secondhand embarrassment if he just ignores her and just doesn’t.

it’s much safer to fantasize: to dream up scenarios in which ji would be charmed by gary’s wit and intelligence. he knows that it’s stupid and inevitably all wrong; that if he were to talk to ji, she would inevitably go off-script immediately and gary would be thrown and awkward and it would be, generally, terrible. even so, he figures that it’s not hurting anyone (except maybe himself a tiny bit, and anyone who’s on shift with him at work) to imagine. 

towards the end of the semester, gary makes his way to the library to work on a paper – he can’t find peace at the house where every background noise is filled with loud swearing and half-exhaustion half-drunk laughter and league of legends from the boys who’re doing last minute papers – while running through a (one of many) favorite scenario in his head: chance upon ji at the library, ji sees him and looks up and smiles and asks what he’s doing there, gary says something terribly witty and hilarious like, oh, you know, my paper can’t copy and paste it’s sources by itself, and then ji laughs, then asks for help with her assignment, which happens to be something gary is a super gucci expert in, like postmodern japanese art galleries or the music in popular 1980’s first person shooter video games, and they spend the whole afternoon together, and then get dinner together, maybe at a place that’s not korean, like some high-end hipster place that gary can totally find money somehow to afford, and then gary will tell ji she has to get the mediterranean wrap and get two extra things of hot sauce on the side, since that’s the exact correct amount, and ji will say it’s the best wrap she’s ever had, and ask what other food secrets gary knows.

once again, his life proves that fate is a bitch. his ji-centric dream world is interrupted by the worst possible thing: actual ji. that he actually chanced upon. in real life.

“oh my god, hey, gary!” ji says - loud enough to earn a glare from a guy from the next table over - and she smiles warmly at him and waves him over with frantic hand movements. 

gary waves back and returning her smile with one that definitely doesn’t hold the same level of sunshine, because surely, there’s no possible way anyone else would be able to match it. low-leveled panic mingled with a little bit of anxiety is tingling and boiling at the bottom of his stomach. “hi,” he says sheepishly as soon as he reaches her, and never once has a word uttered from his mouth felt so stupid (besides the whole sex thing, but he was six years old and had a fucking accent back then, so he still has an excuse). 

“hey,” ji says again, pulling out a chair beside her and patting it for him to sit down. “that was actually kinda funny, you walked in as soon as i looked up. what’re you here for?”

he awkwardly plops down onto the chair, struggling to remember what his line from his fantasy was. the only thing he can think about is how it would be so, so so much worse if gary was tall - or godforbid, handsome - because he’d have so many limbs and facial expressions that he wouldn’t what to do with. 

then he remembers his dumb one liner. now he knows what the meaning of shook is, finally. his line, his fucking line, it actually fits in with the conversation, and everything’s going to the script he made up in his head. 

“um,” gary struggles, “ well, you know - i have a paper and… my paper isn’t gonna copy and paste itself.” he shrugs bashfully and clears his throat, the tips of his ears (and his cheeks, probably) are burning. he can’t believe he just said that, it… it just sounds so boring and unoriginal and dumb out loud, he wants god to take his life before his social status sinks and does it for him. 

somehow, miraculously, mysteriously (a gift from god, more like) - ji laughs. like really loudly. gary laughs too, in pure relief that he hasn’t completely dug his grave. they’re noisy enough to result in a sigh from the guy who glared at them earlier. 

“then what’re you doing here?” gary asks when ji’s done laughing at his miracle.

“i have an assignment about florence knoll bassett and her revolutions in postmodern furniture design. wikipedia has a lot on her, actually, but i’m sort of lost about like everything. do you know anything-?”

he manages to keep calm, altough his real life is going to the plan that’s in his head, it’s going something like that. he doesn't know too much on furniture designers since he always got graphic designers, but he’s taken all the art classes he needs for their department so far, and he knows a good amount from other people’s presentations and has done research on his own about some of them, so he knows his fair share about postmodern furniture. 

“oh yeah, actually, i guess. sort of? are you taking modern design 3?”

“yeah, did you take it?” ji asks, sounding almost too hopeful considering that gary only knows a brief bit about knoll from light research he did in his second year. “was she your artist for “emerging designers” person?

“yeah, i mean, no - she wasn't my person. but someone in my class did a powerpoint on her and her badassery about her profession and her furniture kind of interested me, so i-” gary’s voice runs off, whenever he talks about art he sounds so uncool. he scratches the back of his neck, he really should’ve stayed in music. “i kind of did some research on my own,” he admits slowly. “i’m sort of what you would consider a modern art… nerd.”

“that’s really cool,” ji says, smiling. “she seems really interesting too, but i was wondering… would you mind helping me out a little bit? if you’re busy and that paper is last minute and you need to get working or something, i understand, but i’ve been here scrolling on tumblr for like half an hour and i really don't know where to start-”

“sure, i'm down to help. my paper isn't due for like three days.” it's actually due in two days, but she doesn't need to know that. 

“oh god, you’re a lifesaver,” ji sighs, her smile reaching her eyes and possibly maybe even the sun. that must be where she’s harnessing some sort of energy, anyway. “thank you so much!”

it’s not that gary is suddenly not awkward – he still very much is, oh god – but somehow, ji makes him sort of forget. every time he mumbles or starts rambling or just says something dumb, ji smiles or laughs. it’s nice, and what surprises gary even more was how easy it is; how comfortable and natural. ji seems to get all of his references, all the half-formed thoughts as they come tumbling out of his mouth. gary wonders if the same ji that curses and beats kevin the freshmen online even really exists - the person sitting next to him is gentle with some form of elegance. the time slips away: gary answers ji’s questions and points her to some resources about the current modern art scene, and then scoots away a little bit because ji’s using one of those expensive, widescreen macbooks, and he figures that she needs kind of a lot of room if she’s gonna keep typing that quickly. that, and he’s still kind of awkward. they work next to each other, breaking often to talk about knoll or the other projects that happen in modern design. suddenly, it’s almost six in the evening and gary’s stomach is starting to complain to him. is it actually possible they’ll go out to eat together? could his fantasy actually come true, or will fate get bitchy again and deprive him of answers to his secret crushing revolution?

“wow, look at the time,” gary muses, hoping that it will – as it does in his head – prompt ji to say, “oh, wow! you hungry? do you wanna grab dinner?”

but instead, the opposite happens. as expected. "oh, shit," ji groans and jumps out of her seat. gary’s fantasy world is surely over by now, and delinquent ji song surely does exist. "sorry, i gotta go," she says as she starts throwing her notebooks and textbooks and laptop into her backpack. "it's my brother’s best friend’s birthday today and i promised i’d go to the party to hopefully not get drunk."

“oh, okay,” gary says, stomping down on on his disappointment before it can reach his eyes.

“thanks so much for your help, though. seriously, you saved me! you’re amazing!” ji gushes. 

gary fidgets, adjusting his notebooks into a straights pile so he can avoid facing ji and showing off the blush that’s undoubtedly dusting his cheeks and ears. “i’ll see you, ah – i’ll see you in class!”

“yeah,” says gary, looking up at ji. she looks so bright and happy, a big grin plastered onto her face and gary looks down at his notebooks again. “see you in class, yeah. have a good... brother’s best friend’s birthday party,” he says, chuckling gently. “stay sober, i guess.”

“thanks!” ji says, beaming. she waves and rushes off, and gary closes his eyes and breathes three times before opening them, and he sees jihyo’s head slowly disappear behind the bookshelves and out the door. he slumps his head on the desk, quietly groaning. the guy at the desk next to him who was glaring at them finally sends his sympathy and pats gary’s back. he’s finally reached his lowest possible point, he’s whipped. he thanks the guy and the lord for getting through the afternoon, and he’s out of the library two minutes later.

he gets home not long after; he’s too wrapped up in reliving his conversation with ji to get any work done. the other guys seem to be headed out of their existential crises’, considering the swearing and screaming has died down considerably other than some freshmen yelling at some other freshmen playing halo in the room below. he feels his cheeks warm up at the sight of ji smiling at him and laughing at his dumbass jokes. shit, this is definitely a crush.

a real, serious, not-going-away-anytime-soon crush. and even more terrifyingly, he’s starting to think it’s reciprocated. maybe.

gary turns the idea over and over carefully in his mind, trying to get rid of the all the anxiety and hope he has over the situation. ji touched his arm and his shoulder and leaned on him for support like a lot, smiled a lot, and laughed a lot, and called him amazing. that’s flirting, right? gary would assume that was flirting if literally any other girl did that because a) gary likes ji, like a lot, so flirting with him must mean a miracle and gary has really bad luck, and also b) ji is not a normal girl, no matter how he looks at it. ji is strong physically and mentally and doesn't wear a lot of makeup and doesn't giggle behind her hand at unfunny jokes and she doesn't really follow blindly behind others. she also doesn’t go with other girls to the bathroom in herds (from what he’s seen), which is sort of a first time for gary. 

either way, ji likes him. or something. maybe, hopefully, gary hopes this strange kind of luck will continue. 

so gary’s mind becomes a little clearer. he has to figure out two things: 1) if ji actually likes to flirt with people or if she’s just sending mixed signals, and 2) does ji does have a naturally flirty personality and flirting with gary was just a tactic to get answers about knoll out of him (which would be mean and his heart would hurt and would probably (hopefully) stop beating so damn hard at the sight of her, and then he would be crushed and cry to haha about it, except not really because donghoon’s a rude ass bitch and would tell jongkook who would tell literally their entire frat on accident because he’s a loud and emotional drunk, and he knows because it's happened before). besides, ji doesn't seem like that kind of person anyway, at least not according to the birthday post she got from jay yoo on instagram.

gary thinks he can sort this out, which oddly feels achievable. which is scary, since he’s not really good at playing detective or these kind of roles. because if he finds out that yes, ji was flirting and yes, ji was specifically choosing to flirt with gary, that means that ji likes gary back. 

which means they should maybe, possibly, potentially actually do something about it. hopefully. 

nearly a week after their encounter in the library, gary walks sleepily over to art-photo history full of nervous anxiety. he’s going to try to talk to ji today and see how things go, see if there’s any more flirting, if anything even happens. if he can even walk up to ji so early in the morning, that’d be something itself. then if there is something, he’s going to talk to her again the next time he sees her and suggest some kind of hang out or mumble out an invitation for coffee. 

something that might be a date but could just as easily be a casual get-together between two totally platonic new friends, because ji has a lot of guy friends, so a new 100% platonic one would hardly make a difference. he hasn’t figured out what the casual-get-together-disguised-as-date will be yet. maybe coffee, or if he can get a sentence out without wanting to die, going to shitty korean places on main street and giving them bad reviews on yelp. then he’ll see how ji reacts during their maybe-but-not-definitely-a-date and just – (this is the scariest part) – go from there.

he’ll observe what ji does. let her make the first move or whatever. it’s kind of a bad idea with timing because it’s finals week and everyone’s going home soon, but he figures maybe something will work, maybe hopefully. gary’s leaving a week into break and coming back three weeks or so later. it's to see his sister and her husband and kids and to check up on his parents and say hi to old friends and revisit his dog, chungin. he’s dragging gil back with him, too). maybe he can get ji’s phone number and they can text over the course of winter break, and maybe they’ll have a class together next semester too, and that can be a possible way to get a possible date-that-isn’t-a-date going if he can’t manage it before the next week and a half. 

he gets to class early maybe for the first time all semester (or the first time in all four years), and there’s ji waiting outside the locked classroom door, somehow looking perfect and all too pulled together in shorts and long socks that are definitely not weather appropriate, and grey hoodie. she's wearing the converse she wears pretty much all the time (not that gary notices this, no way), and her backpack is sitting on the ground, next to her feet. 

she’s texting or something on her phone, so gary could just walk right past her and bail on his whole plan, but he makes himself take a deep breath and walk slowly over. 

“hey,” gary manages, standing next to ji.

ji looks up and her face breaks into a smile and gary instantly scans and remembers the image for life and files that under good things & potential flirting – evidence.

“oh, hey, gary. listen, thanks a ton for helping me out the other day, i feel a lot more confident about the whole thing now. i’m almost done with it and i don’t have to present for another two days, so you really saved me!” 

“oh, that’s great! i’m happy i helped, since it was no problem.”

“well, i really appreciated it. how’d you do with your paper?”

gary has unfortunately stopped processing what ji is saying in favor of watching her mouth, and he can’t even think, you fucking dumbass!!!!!!!!! before his brain manages to catch up. before ji has to repeat herself he says, “ah, my paper paper! it’s – um, it went well, thanks. i got like half of it done that night and the rest on thursday.” 

he doesn't mention that most, if not all of his paper writing was two hours before the deadline, after he numbed and gave his brain a long break of binge watching the new season of haikyuu that he missed and the first season of pokemon and then watching rent twice before crying for a good ten, twenty minutes, then remembering about the paper and feverishly typing it until almost midnight (a.k.a. the deadline), and then he collapsed from the exhaustion and sheer disbelief at his procrastination after turning it in online. 

“cool,” ji says, nodding. then she catches him off guard, saying, “oh, your backpack’s really nice.”

“my backpack?” gary repeats dumbly. he looks down at the straps as though he doesn’t know what his own backpack looks like. it’s one of the expensive german backpacks which he can’t remember how to pronounce the name of that his sister bought him with her third paycheck back when he was in high school and she was fresh out of college (because she got herself takeout with the first one and took their parents out to eat with the second). it’s black and gary still uses it even though it’s sort of small, it’s good for mondays when he only has two classes, work, and a recording session if he’s lucky. and a radio show to run if geko gets sick like he always does and has gary take over, even though gary has one every other day of the week to run himself in the same studio.

“yeah, it’s one of those super expensive ones that only exist on instagram for an aesthetic brand model, right?” ji asks, laughing lightly. 

she lifts her hands to gary’s shoulders, brushing across them and then down the straps, her fingertips just barely gliding over the embroidery to emphasize the apparently nice expensiveness. gary’s heart is in his throat. 

“i don’t always like the way the way these look, you know? but yours suits you really well.” 

and then – gary can hardly believe it and it’s happening to him, he’s about to faint – ji’s smoothes his hands over gary’s chest, feeling it. the fit. or gary’s chest. he’s not sure. but backpacks sure as hell don’t expand over people’s chests and she just complimented him, and and this is like, unreal, he’s like ninety-five-percent sure that this is flirting, or making a first move or whatever.

“hey, gary!” someone calls from down the hall, and ji’s hands slide from gary’s chest and he leans around ji to see geko fast walking towards them, partying crowds of freshmen as if he wasn’t the same height (read: short) as them. gary’s partly relieved that geko’s here to save him and partly ready to snap his neck, so he steps back away from ji, calling out, “yo, geko-ah!” and waving at him.

“hyung, don't call me that,” geko mumbles, knocking into his shoulder. 

“it’s cute,” gary smiles. geko groans, stretching his hands over his face. 

“you’ve got a final?” geko asks, and gary nods. there’s obvious disgust on geko’s face at the word final, and it’s sort of endearing. all of gary’s rapper juniors are endearing. 

“art-photo history in a few minutes,” gary says, pointing towards the classroom door.

“i just wanted to ask if you could come by the station tonight. if you don't have a final, stop by and chat ‘cause yg and jyp said this week should be guest week and since you've always got guests during finals i figured that i’d just pull you in since everyone, including cho, is too lazy to come out. plus i was gonna come by the house for dinner tonight cause jung and cho can’t cook for shit, and af’s packed and scary to be at during finals and i need brain food or something. you know what it’s gonna be?”

“i think it’s fish tonight,” gary says. “chef keeps saying it’s good for us, but i think the kitchen budget’s just running out for the semester. and yeah, i’ll stop by, i figured that you’d get sick or something too, since it’s cold already.”

“i should’ve used that as an excuse,” geko laughs, his eye smile coming out. “all right, sounds good. see you later. you too,” he says, turning to ji, “your brother’s totally tearing up the department, all the af guys are buzzing ‘bout it. you should’ve seen dan’s face.”

“i’m sure dongwook’ll tell me as soon as he wakes up,” ji muses, “but ki’s always been a bit ruthless when it comes to grades.”

“you two are too similar,” geko laughs. “see you guys!” 

gary doesn’t ask who dongwook or dan is, but he knows ki is ki song, some beast freshmen who’s more popular than any other guy in the theatre department. he waves at geko's retreating form, more thankful than unthankful at his accidental disruption, considering that gary must’ve been beet red by the time ji was done feeling his fit or whatever. 

“i didn’t know you were close with geko,” ji says a moment later, turning towards him.

“yeah, well, he was one of my juniors in one of my composition classes when i was a sophmore and i got paired with him. i was also the one who sorta hired him for monday night radio spots, but that's just because he’s good,” gary shrugs, grinning.

“i never got why he’s called geko, though,” ji says leaning against the wall. gary’s starting to relax and this conversation’s going easier than he thought it would.

“well rather than his real name, shayne, he used to ask people to call him gaeko which is his rapper name or whatever because he was a really edgy teenager, and then around a year or two ago everyone just got really lazy with the pronunciation and his nickname evolved in gecko,” gary explains, “now it’s sort of a joke, even though he’s always begging us koreans to say gaeko properly.”

“is he an immigrant?” ji asks, her head tilting. gary can feel his cheeks starting to grow warm, she’s too, too much.

“nah, but he’s always been super into his korean name and loves it when we call him yoonsung. its cute.” 

“then you know a lot of foreigners on campus?” ji asks.

“i know a pretty decent amount, yeah,” gary says thoughtfully, “but you’re the first person from korea for me to have a class with. the other guys i met in social groups or something.”

“oh,” ji says.

gary can’t help but feel as if that one word meant something. “oh” as in okay? “oh” as in gross disgusting, i don't want to be special to you, or oh as in like…. that’s cool? his cheeks warm up and he bites the inside of his mouth to keep from smiling too hard or saying something dumb. he looks down the hall and focuses on some white guys doing an over exaggerated dab-handshake-fistbumb manuver that gary no longer feels silly doing with haha.

even though he’s not looking at her, gary can feel the impending awkwardness. he’s tempted to do a cheesy, “so, do you think as yourself as ji song or song jihyo? i identify or whatever as kang gary, because no one calls me heegun besides my grandma anymore, not even my parents, but the last name before the first name is kind of a natural thing, you know?” as he looks back at ji, but he’s miraculously saved by the appearance of the professor. 

the professor unlocks the classroom door, rushing in, turning on the lights and smiling apologetically for being late. gary smiles at ji like we both know this conversation is over, and he sits down at his normal seat while ji sits in the front with her asian friends. gary didn’t ask for her number or offer to hang out, but he still feels elated. 

this is fine, he thinks. i’m satisfied with this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so there will be ?????? many more chapters and idk how often its gonna be updated but yea thanks for checkin out my stuff also!! each chapter is gonna be named after a gary/leessang song so yeeee
> 
> (stalk me on tumblr and ig!!! @incorrectrunningman and @smhsenpai n hit me up on twitter @noicepotato)


	2. lonely night

it turns out that he actually isn’t satisfied.

he gets good grades on his exams and flies out with gil a more than a week later, not so subtly nursing a broken heart that hasn’t been broken yet. simon and jay, old underclassmen friends from high school meet them at the airport with their names written sloppily in hangul. gary’s glowing with happiness by the time they go out for korean cuisine at the place he used go to with his parents when he was a kid. 

“heegun hyung, i can’t believe you’re doing art,” jay says through a mouth of bulgogi.

“i know, it’s admirable,” gil sighs, “watching him struggle, though, that’s the fun part.”

“i’m planning to live in a van by the river and you three can visit me on your days off,” gary says, handing jay a napkin, “but i’m not inviting anyone if they don't give me like $5 as an entrance fee.”

“that’s sort of worrying. hyung, you’ve always had so much confidence in your writing and your music made money in high school,” simon says, staring him down. “what’s so good about art?”

“there’s a lot of good things about art,” gary says, “talent, knowledge, love, peace, tranquility. cute girls.”

“his entire income comes from my place,” gil sighs, “he’s practically indebted to me. but he’s right, there’s cute girls in the program.”

“i’m not into judgmental art girls,” simon mumbles.

“you’re not into girls to begin with,” jay says, and simon chokes on his water. gary pats him on the back solemnly.

“i just wanted… music, why didn’t - ah, fuck you jay-” simon mutters.

“not all of us can live off of go fund me donations and soundcloud views,” gary says, helping simon recollect himself. chaos doesn’t ensue again until jay brings up simon’s recent dating history.

he turns down jay and simon’s offer of hitting up some clubs and passing out at jay’s apartment afterwards, he rather go home and take chungim out for a walk. besides, he hasn’t gone clubbing since he was junior, during his first semester when he realized he had to step up his productivity game in order to get decent grades and waking up with a hangover every morning didn’t help. he pats gil’s back as he leaves with the two younger boys, the poor old man. 

he gets home as the sky turns dark. everything smells like home. the stray cats that have always lined streets are drawn to him as if they were summoned, sniffing his ankles and meowing up at him. it’s snowing and it’s cold and everything is dirty - as usual - but it’s not bad.

his parents get home from work an hour later, his mom dropping grocery bags onto the dining table in favor of hugging him tighter than anyone else has in the past four months. he melts into it, struggling to pry her off a minute later when she still hasn’t let go.

dinner is small since gary already ate out with gil, jay, and simon, but it feels good to eat something other than pizza and chinese takeout and whatever decent but basic food the house chef cooks up. his parents go to bed five hours earlier than he does because of the time difference, and he promises that he’ll head out to visit his sister at work if they promise to make him breakfast. they leave at seven, and gary can wake up at 11, earliest, when he sleeps in his own bed. it’s been a while. 

the next morning, he wakes up to a note on the table and his metrocard. he would’ve preferred to take a bus, but he hasn’t used the subway for half a year. 

he persuades simon to get up to drive him to one of the entrances because the nearest one is a good twenty minutes away through a foot of snow and suffering. the voice from the other line is groggy and near unintelligible, but gary hears the words, “okay, you fucking aushfvakufva hyung whywhywhy kill meskdvfksuhdvghfdsasbhjnvcfuck,” and he finds it accepting enough, so he hangs up. 

(he keeps this up for the next week before simon shows up at his door one day, before he even called. he shoves his brother’s car keys, who happens to be out of town, at him saying, just fucking take them, and then he leaves, half asleep and complaining. gary makes a promise that he’ll soon forget to be nicer to the younger ones.)

he spends the next two weeks watching christmas movies with his sister and playing league of legends with gil. somewhere along the way, jay manages to convince him into helping with a track, and then suddenly it’s up on spotify with thousands of views, from jay’s active followers that gary didn’t know existed. his voice is praised all over jay’s social media, and gains a hundred followers on instagram after jay tags him in something. gary adds jay’s music to his library in the dead of night, promising himself that if he ever went back to music, he’d at least use jay as a source to gain a following.

:)

returning to california after adjusting back to the east coast’s time zone is hell. gary has to learn onto gil for support when they get back to the airport at twelve, his body’s feeling 3 a.m. it’s been awhile since he's done a 3 a.m. 

new york, in a nutshell, was relaxing to go back to. gil seemed less stressed over going back, and he met up with their high school friends more than gary did. gary didn't see anyone other than his sister or his parents much until a week before they left, until he ran into one of the underclassmen he was close to when he was a senior, ailee, while stopping for ramen at the grocery store. they got coffee and she ended up dragging him to a party with more old friends, his underclassmen from high school who he maybe talked to over the summer. when he was a senior, he had more junior friends than senior friends. it was touching seeing them all again.

he had also promised jungin that he’d show up to the five year class of 2012 reunion if he didn’t end up killing himself accidently before the winter after graduation. he just prays that he’ll graduate. 

their neighborhood is big and their community is even bigger, and gary goes flies back with more phone numbers and snapchat codes than he counted on. 

:)

the next time gary sees ji, he’s at barnes and noble. he’s sitting cross legged in the kids section, listening to jay’s music with a stack of books in front of him, all of them written for ten year olds. he’s half way through jacky ha-ha before realizing that kevin finished his first soft porn romance novel and has now moved onto a new nc-17 book that gary doesn’t want to know the name of. 

“this is so, so gay,” kevin laughs, fidgeting in this chair.

“is it as gay as you?” gary asks in a flat voice. he doesn’t really want to know.

“no way,” kevin grins, closing it. “but i’m not buying it either.”

kevin had dragged him to forever 21, buying new trendy clothes that gary doesn’t see the appeal to. he also dragged him along to eat at thai kitchen and then dragged him into barnes and noble to get “books” - read: gay porn, who ruined this poor boy’s innocence? - and now they’re sitting in the kids section. gary can’t remember why. he’s been dragged along too much today to remember, so many stores, no focus. 

dozens of kids have passed them in the past hour, every single one of them staring at them. It’s understandable, two college kids, one that looks like a tired old man reading through 200 page chapter books; the other reading parental advisory books that gary didn’t even know was a real published book genre outside of badly written kpop fanfiction and 50 shades of grey. tt turns out that it is. the more you know. 

“are we leaving yet, then?” gary asks. he’ll never understand kevin. he’ll never understand why he let’s kevin take him out. 

“no…” kevin mutters. “those were all so bad… gotta find a good one, hyung.”

kevin’s pronunciation of hyung is a bit off, but gary appreciates that he tries. 

he squints at kevin in the 21+ section. he’s so tall, gary would be able to see him from a mile away. gary goes back to read harry potter, respectively, wondering why malfoy had to grow up to be such a bitch when he could've just been nice.

“...gary?” 

gary looks up to see ji in sweatpants and a sweatshirt. unexpectedly. there’s shopping bags hanging from her wrist, and she has a cap pulled low over her eyes so he doesn't really recognize her at first. she’s clutching a pile of books to her chest.

“oh, hi ji,” he says, shifting his eyes away so she can’t see how surprised he is. of all times, with all people. kevin could - no, he definitely will - screw this up for him.

gary sighs.

“what are you doing here?” she asks, sitting down on the bench next next to him. right next to his own personal pile of children's books.

“oh, you know, browsing through some geronimo stilton, some percy jackson,” gary says off handedly, examining his reading pile, “accompanying some freshmen. the usual.”

“freshmen?”

“just one, the class of 2020’s signature dumbass. kevin lee.” gary says, motioning over to him. “and i wouldn't recommend going over there. he’s in a shameless place you wouldn’t want to get caught at.”

ji cranes her neck, squinting at kevin’s tall figure. 

“typical, isn’t it?” ji mutters and gary nods. “i didn’t know you knew him. but you’re friends with a lot of the korean frat guys, right?”

“oh, it’s the korean frat now?” gary asks thoughtfully. “back in my day, it was just the asian frat.”

“apparently.”

this is okay. their conversation is going fine, they can just keep making fun of kevin from afar and talk about mutual friends and kevin can't screw anything up for him.

“i mean, i know jongkook and jay and all of them, but not really the freshmen or the other guys there. kwangsoo works at my best friend’s coffee place.”

“oh.”

there’s a pause in the conversation.

“hey,” ji begins, “i was wondering if you maybe prefered-”

“gary.”

gary looks up for the second time only to be disappointed by kevin’s figure towering over him.

“did you find something suitable?” he asks. kevin nods.

“i found something really good, actually, but i don't know if i should buy it since ji’s always hanging around everywhere i go,” kevin glares, motioning over to ji. She stares at him.

“maybe you should stop reading porn and study, kevin.”

“well then maybe you should stop pinning after ga-”

ji leaps up faster than anyone gary’s ever seen, covering kevin’s mouth and kicking his shin. gary sits back, enjoying kevin’s ass being kicked right in front of him. he deserves it.

“ji, you know that hurts,” kevin whines, rubbing his shin. he turns on gary. “did you see that? she’s totally crazy! how could you have just-”

“i’ve seen it online, but seeing the real thing was amazing,” gary says. he looks up at kevin. “I really hope that that happens often.” 

“It does,” ji says, adjusting her hat. “It’s real useful, you know?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is the laziest thing ive ever written..... i apologize 
> 
> more coming soon? probably not. but there's always hope i guess.
> 
> hmu!  
> @stanyoonjin on ig  
> @incorrectrunningman on tumblr  
> @stanamseok on twt


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a short one here

somehow, gary finds himself in the middle of a college party exactly a week later. in the asian frat. surrounded by drunk korean freshmen and the uninvited sight of kevin grinding on a senior in the corner, shitty edm music blasting throughout the house.

gary takes an amused sip of the beer he's been nursing, sitting by himself on a faux leather couch. 

he's not here to get shitfaced, but more of a chaperone. he's starting to remember why he hates college parties.

"hey, loser," comes a voice into his ear, and gary turns to see jay slide into the seat next to him. gary snorts in return. jay is a big mouthed senior who's popular with pretty much everyone, which includes practically orchestrating the moves of their whole friend group. 

if gary didn't know how good of a person jay is, he would've assumed long ago that his ego is too big for his head.

"somethin' got you in a funk big enough to talk to lonely gary?" gary asks him, with the cock of his head. 

it's jay's turn to snort. "nah, just wondering what caused the famous dd gary kang to show up," he pries, nudging gary with his elbow. "shouldn't you be sporting capris sun, not beer? huh, kang?"

gary's about to open his mouth before jin attacks him from the other side.

fuck. gary forgot that those two don't go anywhere without the other. 

"c'mon, gary, lighten uuuup," jin says, knocking into his shoulder. gary laughs and takes a calculated sip of his beer, bobbing his head to the music as jin starts dancing more. jesus, jin is such a lightweight. its only 7 pm. "it's time to get fucked uppppp."

"i'm designated driver tonight, hyung," gary says, pushing him away. jay quirks his eyebrows. oh no. gary doesn't like where this is going.

he leans in close, whispering to gary, "dd or interested in someone?" gary's eye widen. "for example, one ji song?"

gary sighs in defeat. he knows it was kevin. "that shit face."

"c'mon, you know kevin has a big mouth," jin says. gary sighs again. jin has an even bigger mouth.

"relax, your secret's safe with us," jay says, standing up. "and also donghoon, min, sechan, and jongkook."

gary has no reactions left. he puts his beer on the coffee table, his body goes slack, and somehow prays that he can melt and become one with the couch.

"let's just daaaance," jin says, standing up from the couch and dancing into the other room where everyone's dancing and grinding on each other. 

jay clasps his shoulder, laughing, and in all honestly, gary would rather die.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapters are gonna be shorter and more frequent from now on, since i really dont wanna abandon this fic. lookin forward to the next one!!


	4. Chapter 4

as much as gary really loves his friends, really, it's hard to exist on the dance floor without wanting to die. as much as people are lost in themselves, not paying attention to how awkward gary is acting, jin keeps bumping and crashing into every able-bodied being, completely fucked up, and jay, being jay, completely encourages it.

"heegun, jaesuk, let's do this," jin says way too confidently after getting up from a tumble. it's normal drunk-jin behavior to call everyone by their korean names. 

"i'd rather not, thanks," gary says, cringing a bit, but then jay pulls him deeper into the dancing crowd and he's forced to go full drunk college student mode.

he spots kevin practically fucking a senior out of the corner of his eye, grinding too hard to be okay, and he wants to roll his eyes when they leave the room together. jin and jay are swaying to the music, arm around the other's shoulder, yelling to the music. donghoon comes over, dragging somin and sechan with him, the two freshmen also completely fucked up, and suddenly most of their friend group is yelling and dancing horribly and making it bad for everyone on the dance floor.

a song gary doesn't recognize comes on, but he dances to it anyway. at least, he's forced to, considering somin's screaming it into his ear. sechan attacks him on the other side, humming and slow dancing with gary's hand. it's sad that he's used to this. he lets them rope him around for almost two hours. it's okay. 

gary rolls his shoulders and gets over his awkward streak. he's probably too sober for this, but he lets jin and donghoon drag him along as they want to, and pretty soon there's a circle around him as be b-boys, lost in the music and the cheers coming out of his friends mouths, mostly because he doesn't have to be drunk to live for this feeling.

"gary, gary," jay starts, and soon they're chanting his name, and gary smiles, laughing. he's exhausted, but he keeps going until another song ends, then he's bowing and nodding as hands clasp his shoulders and give him high fives, and escapes the crowd for the couch.

"ugh," he groans, landing spread eagle on the cushions, grabbing at his beer.

that's gonna be the last time he lets jay do that to him (it won't). 

he takes a long swing of beer and relaxes, sitting up. he puts the beer on the table. 

"well, i didn't know you could dance like that," he hears a voice say. a familiar voice. gary almost dies on the spot.

he comes face to face with ji song herself, ji with her smug faced sipping an amused sip of beer. he wants to speak, but suddenly his tongue is dry. she wasn't watching him dance, was she-?

"it was impressive, i'm not making fun of you, don't worry," she says, sitting down next to him. him..! choosing to talk to gary than her other friends..! gary decides that he is much too deep in for this to be just a small crush on a classmate. 

"i didn't think you'd be watching, or i might've gone harder," gary quips, and ji laughs.

"oh, really?" she asks, and gary nods.

conversation with ji comes so easily. no wonder he likes her.

"but," he says, raising an eyebrow, "if you thought that was impressive, you should've seen the show kevin was putting on for a senior over there. i didn't know people could fuck without actually fucking like that."

"oh, i saw," she says, taking another sip and scrunching up her nose. "it was disgusting."

"yeah, it really was," he laughs, and she laughs too, and really, it could not be better.

they talk for what feels like hours, about everything. schools and friends and family. he learns that ji has a younger brother, he's in the acting department and is the biggest but most endearing shit ever. he believes her.

sometime around 12, kevin comes over, somin and sechan trailing behind, all of them drunk out of their minds. kevin sits down, right on gary's lap, and gary groans, hating how much bigger the younger is.

"you kids ready to go home?" he asks, and ji laughs from beside him.

"no, i need to get drunk," kevin says, and somin nods enthusiastically. gary sighs.

"you're already drunk, kev," he says, and kevin shakes his head.

"nooo."

"yes."

"no!"

"yeah, buddy, you are very drunk right now."

kevin just whines, and ji laughs, and sechan tries to get on his lap too, and with that, gary gets up and hauls them off.

"sorry for the little interruption," gary says. one arm is around kevin, and the younger boys head is on his shoulder, dozing off. somin found a way onto his back, and he guesses he'll be carrying her around. sechan is swaying on his feet, dangerously close to falling. 

"it's okay, take care of the kids," she laughs, and gary grins.

"well, watch jin and jay for me, then," he says, and she nods.

"jongkook's on it right now. donghoon is passed out."

"good," he says, and sechan whines. "see ya around?"

she nods affirmatively. "see you."

and with that, gary sets off, practically dragging kevin and supporting sechan, making sure he doesn't fall. they barely get through the front door, and gary hauls the three of them in the back seat of his car, strapping them in.

"hyung, i want beer!" kevin yells, and gary sighs. 

he loves his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the short one! ngl i want fan art of somin draped on gary's back and the other two total recks LOL. i hope yall are liking it so far! i hope to update soon


End file.
